Governors

St Peter Chanel has a team of Governors who take an active role in supporting the School’s efforts to improve and maintain the highest possible educational standards. Working alongside the Head Teacher we oversee the success of the school, agree priorities, monitor and evaluate performance. Between us, we come from varied professional backgrounds so have a good mixture of expertise and skills.

What do we do?

We are responsible for upholding the Catholic ethos of the school, setting the strategic direction of the school, approving the budget and for over-seeing the curriculum taught.

The Head Teacher (who is also a Governor) makes the day to day decisions about the running of the school.

The Government and Ofsted have high expectations of Governing Bodies and Leadership. When inspected, Ofsted will evaluate how effectively governors challenge and hold senior leaders to account for all aspects of the school’s performance and how they ensure financial probity.

How do we achieve this?

Much of our work is conducted at termly meetings of our 3 Committees, Curriculum, Staffing and Resources prior to a meeting of the full Governing Body.
• Curriculum - oversees the school curriculum.
• Staffing - oversees all staff employed at the school.
• Resources - oversees finance, health and safety and premises.
The full Governing Body meets at least four times each year, receives reports from the Head Teacher, considers reports and recommendations from the sub committees, makes decisions and conducts routine business.

Our responsibilities include:

• Having an input to and reviewing the school development plan.
• Helping to determine aims, policies and priorities for the school.
• Approving and analysing the school budget.
• Monitoring and evaluating the work of the school and pupil attainment.
• Challenging weaknesses and underperformance.
• Reviewing progress against the school’s budget and objectives.
• Monitoring levels of attendance and good standards of pupil behaviour.

Additionally we regularly visit the school so that we know and understand what is going on and the effect of the decisions we make.

Minutes of Governor meetings can be viewed on request. Please speak to the school office. A cost may be incurred for photocopying.

Types of Governors explained:

• Foundation Governors: appointed by the Diocese of Southwark.
• Parent Governors: elected onto the governing body by other parents from the school, and are usually parents of children in attendance at the school.
• Staff Governors: elected onto the governing body by staff at the school.
• Local Authority (LA) Governors: appointed by the Local Authority that maintains the school.

Link Class Governors:

It is expected that every non-staff governor is linked to a class in the school and will move up with this class each year so that continuity and a rapport can be built up with the children of that class.